Rusty the Boy from the Hills by Ruskin Bond

"Rusty is a quiet, imaginative and sensitive boy who lives with his grandparents in pre-Independence Dehra Dun. Though he is not the adventurous himself, the strangest and most extraordinary things keep happening around him. The house in Dehra is full of strange creatures. Rusty has to deal with everything from his grandfather’s pet python to the ever-inventive Uncle Ken. Visiting his father in wartime Java, Rusty narrowly escapes enemy bombardment, and survives a plane crash in the Arabian Sea. Back in India, he spends his time encountering a ghost in the garden and recreating his grandmother’s youthful days from an old photograph. Then, something totally unexpected happens and Rusty is forced to leave Dehra, his future uncertain … This volume of Rusty stories, the first in a series, traces Rusty’s development from early childhood to his early teens and is a riveting read for younger and older children alike."

About the Author:-

Ruskin Bond's first novel, The Room on the Roof, written when he was seventeen, received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957. Since then he has written a number of novellas, essays, poems and children's books. He has also written over 500 short stories and articles that have appeared in magazines and anthologies. He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1992, the Padma Shri in 1999 and the Padma Bhushan in 2014.
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli, Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar, Dehradun, New Delhi and Shimla. As a young man, he spent four years in the Channel Islands and London. He returned to India in 1955. He now lives in Landour, Mussoorie, with his adopted family.